Quite a few words are mispronounced by under-educated people, or people learning English as a second language. Some words are often mispronounced by quite educated people who read, and began reading high-level literature before they heard the vocabulary spoken.

This can lead to a vocabulary dissonance, occasionally leading to the belief that there are two words (the known spelling of one, and the verbal hearing of the same) where only one exists. Epitome is a common example that springs to mind.

Answer with a word and its proper pronunciation (and potentially, the commonly mistaken punctuation).

This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions here. This question and its answers are frozen and cannot be changed. More info: help center.

I think British and American pronunciation and spelling of the word 'aluminum' are different. Americans place the emphasis on a long 'OO' in the second syllable, whereas the British place the emphasis on a short 'i' in the third syllable and include another 'i' before the last 'u' (aluminium).

It turns out that Doc Brown was right, in a way. The historically accurate way to pronounce the prefix giga- is with a j-sound (as in jigabyte).

I think this is the best example of a collective "say it before you heard it". It seems the people in the circles the prefix came into first use (mainly the sciences) didn't ever take a class in ancient greek (not that I ever have either), or recognize that other words with the same etymology (giant and gigantic are pronounced jiant and jigantic) are inconsistent with this pronunciation. But the pronunciation has stuck so what can you do.

Also, as an afterthought - Colonel. Who the hell came up with that? It took me years to recognize that Colonel and "Kernel" is the same rank.

Where did you get the idea that “giga” is historically pronounced /dʒiga/? Historically, the word comes from Greek, started with a γ and was, by very widespread consensus, pronounced /g/ in Ancient Greek (and as a voiced velar fricative in Modern Greek, neither of which sound anything like /dʒ/). Furthermore, the prefix was proposed by a German-speaking member of the IEC and there is no /dʒ/ sound in German so I doubt (though I don’t know) that the proposal intended the /dʒ/ pronunciation.
–
Konrad RudolphNov 28 '10 at 18:20

Murray Gellman insisted on kvork pronunciation, while it was supposed to rhyme with 'bark' in the original poem, "Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn't got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all beside the mark."

I have always pronounced and heard this word as KOR-uh-lar-ee but recently found out that my wife pronounces it kor-AW-lar-ee (I guess like the Brits, if dictionary.com is to be believed). I thought this might have been from her growing up in a small town, but how often are people saying "corollary" in a small town anyway?? Where she picked up the British pronunciation, I'll never know.

Many places in the US are named "Berkeley" and are pronounced "Burkly", but they are all(?) named after Sir William Berkeley, whose name is(was?) pronounced like Charles Barkley, the basketball player.

Cairo, Illinois is pronounced "KAY-row", not like the place with the pyramids.

Versailles, Kentucky is pronounced "ver-SAILS", not like the place with the palace.

Yesterday, I heard someone on NPR pronounce "secreted", as in to have concealed or hidden something. Never having heard the word spoken before, I've always assumed it is pronounced secret-ed and not secrete-ed as he said.

The NPR person was wrong, then. The emphasis is on the first syllable when it's the past tense of secret, and on the second syllable when it's the past tense of secrete. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/secreted
–
mmyersAug 26 '10 at 17:38

2

You really don't want to secrete anything you don't mean to, in particular not to be secreted away.
–
PotatoswatterJan 31 '11 at 10:24

The word "Dickensian". I read this word many times before I heard someone say it. I always pronounced this with the accent on the first syllable, exactly as it is with "Dickens". Then I heard someone else say it with the accent on the second syllable. And then I heard another person say it that way. And then I had a person 'correct' me when I said it with the accent on the first syllable.

Actually, this doesn't really answer your question, because I think it should be pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. It doesn't make sense to me that you would pronounce "Dickensian" with an accent on a different syllable than the accented syllable in "Dickens".

For a long time I pronounced Epitome as "Epi-tome" when I saw the word in print. Funny thing is that I was aware of the prononciation "Epi-to-me", but subconsciously assumed that it was a different word. I had much else on my mind, I guess, to investigate. I am now enlightened.